A Maid's Life

Margaret Treacy, a poor farmgirl in Ireland, comes to New York, hoping to find a position as a maid in a fashionable house. And she does. But it all falls apart when she's dismissed without an explanation and set adrift. A maid for a never-in-fashion new-money family, a factory worker, and a nun. She leaves the order when she learns that her first mistress couldn't bear her presence. Because it prevented her from fulfilling her obligation to "love" a man and have his children.

Margaret and ...